Obamacare will lead to financial calamity

Dan Carpenter's Aug. 14 column, "Obamacare and beyond," nicely illuminated the debate on the Affordable Care Act and illustrated why there is so much emotion tied up in it. The left hopes it will lead to a government health-care system and the right fervently fears a bankrupt America after 10 years or so of Obamacare on the way to that government system.

As a physician I can see nothing but financial calamity by implementing Obamacare. It will certainly create much additional demand on a health-care system, already the most expensive in the world. The supply of primary-care providers for patients is very important but quite limited. The supply of more expensive specialists is much more plentiful. There is also a huge availability of lab tests and MRIs driving up costs extensively.

Why not put Obamacare on the shelf, skip that expensive financial detour, and move to a system similar to those used in most industrialized countries of the world and designed to deliver higher quality health care than ours at a cost of up to 40 percent less than what we pay?